At last her knees buckle. And when she tries to say, Hi, Uncle Marty in response, all that comes out is a deep, wrenching sob. With an arm around her waist, he guides her back to the sofa.

Kayla follows from a short distance. Before Charlotte collapses against Marty’s chest, she glimpses Kayla watching them from the doorway, her expression grave but relaxed, as if Charlotte’s breakdown is proof that calling Marty was the right choice.

15

“Arizona?” Marty asks. “What the hell’s in Arizona?”

“It’s beautiful,” Charlotte answers.

“Yeah, if you want to live on Mars.”

“Never been so I can’t compare.”

“Seriously, though. Arizona?”

Marty shakes his head, sips from the coffee Kayla just brought him before disappearing into the kitchen.

“I thought it’d be safe out there,” she says.

“From what? We took care of the Briffel kid the one time he showed up, didn’t we?”

Not well enough, she wants to say, but she knows that’s unfair. Jason never would have found her again without Dylan’s help. Marty and his buddies deserve credit for scaring him off her scent for a good long while.

“There are other Jasons out there. Message boards, websites about the Bannings. All kinds of stuff.”

“Tell me you’re not reading that crap.”

“How much did Kayla tell you?” Charlotte asks.

“That Jason paid you a visit. That it didn’t end well. That’s all.”

“I should have called you.”

“Well, it’s not like I would have been able to make it to Arizona in time.”

“No, sooner. I mean, in general. I should have . . .”

She’d managed to peel herself off his chest a few minutes before, but there’s only about a foot of distance between them on the sofa now. He reaches across it to smooth her bangs back from her forehead.

“You don’t owe me anything, kiddo. That’s not how it works.”

“How what works?”

“Family.”

Real family, is what he seems to be saying, unlike your father, who didn’t treat you like family.

“Maybe not, but I shouldn’t treat family that way.”

Marty shrugs. He agrees with her, but he doesn’t want to rub it in. Not when she’s like this.

And he came as soon as Kayla called. That means more to her than anything in the world.

She’d had lots of plans when she started her self-imposed exile: to get an online degree, to work up the courage to live in a big city again. Or maybe even to move back to Altamira once her grief for Luanne lost some of its darkness. All she needed was time, she’d thought. Time to gather confidence. Time to let her new name sink in and her terrible fame dissipate.

On some days she’d thought it would be as simple as letting herself age to the point where no one recognized her anymore, when the resemblance she bore to the young woman her father used to trot in front of crowds was a passing one. But would that come at a price? With each year it took to gather confidence and anonymity, would it become even harder to bring Marty or Luanne’s other friends, or anyone from Altamira, back into her life again?

After she’d fled to the desert, these questions tormented her. Now the answer seems clear. Marty’s right here beside her, and he came at a moment’s notice.

“How’s everyone?” she asks.

“Same. Pissed, though. Some developers said they were gonna open a big lodge out on PCH. Turned out to be bullshit. Couple folks went under because of it. Mona Sanchez is sheriff now.”

“That’s good. I liked her.”

“Copper Pot’s still going strong. Still got the best pie in California. What else?”

Marty focuses on the blank white wall behind her. She figures he’s debating whether or not to share some other piece of hometown trivia, something she might find troubling.

“What?” she asks.

“Nothing. So you want to tell me what got you to leave Arizona?”

Kayla appears in the doorway with a suddenness that suggests she’s been eavesdropping.

It’s not going to be easy, telling the story again now that she knows Kayla doesn’t believe a big chunk of it. But at least her lawyer isn’t trying to bias Marty one way or the other. Instead she rests one shoulder against the door frame and studies Charlotte intently.

Charlotte looks at the floor and starts to talk.

Occasionally she glances up at Marty to find he’s gone as still as a statue, his eyes saucer-wide, his mouth set in a grim line. He’s a smart man with no patience for the bullshit he believes defines most human interactions. But he can also spend a solid hour explaining how alien infiltration has taken place at the highest levels of the American government, and he can do it with the conviction of Kayla arguing a case before the Supreme Court of California. So maybe Marty’s having less trouble believing all this than another person might.

By the time she finishes, he’s gone pale.

“You believe me?” Charlotte asks. “Kayla doesn’t.”

Kayla walks toward her, holding her mobile phone out in one hand. It takes Charlotte a second to realize she wants her to look at what’s on the screen.

It’s from the website of the Phoenix-based NBC affiliate. The accompanying photograph is a helicopter shot of sheet-draped bodies lying in the middle of nowhere. The bus sheds have been obliterated, leaving her to wonder if they were the source of the explosion.

The headline: BLAST AT OUTLAW BIKER WEAPONS STOREHOUSE KILLS 11

It’s a rush TV news article, short on details, designed mostly to support the slide show of helicopter shots capturing the scene. Eleven killed, speculation it might be related to the takedown of a Vapados storehouse in California the week before, which had forced some members of the gang to relocate into rival territory. A possible battle between Hells Angels and Vapados suggested but not confirmed. No mention of a victim who seems to be out of place. A victim like Dylan Thorpe.

“He did it,” Charlotte says.

“This Dylan guy?” Marty asks.

“Or the guy who calls himself Dylan,” Kayla says. “Did you read all the way to the end?”

“No.”

“Read all the way to the end.”

She does. That’s where she finds the quote from an anonymous law enforcement source speculating that not all the bikers were killed by the blast; several were found with close-range gunshots to the head.

Marty gestures for the phone. She hands it to him, then gets to her feet.

It seems rude, but she turns her back on them anyway, closes her eyes, tries to imagine the man she talked to month after month going from biker to biker, putting bullets between their wide, terrified eyes. Using his powers of manipulation to lure Jason to her house, to convince her to take his crazy drug—those talents belong to one skill set, close-range executions to another. Was that the point of the explosion? Not to provide cover for his escape, but to incapacitate those bastards so he could execute them one by one?

And when it comes to executing outlaw bikers, is she in any position to judge? But she was defending herself. Defending herself with the power of a drug she’d been tricked into taking. A shot between the eyes—that’s a different story.

That takes a very special kind of person.

A person who’s been trained to kill.

“You believe her now?” Marty asks.

“Look, I never said I didn’t believe she’d been drugged or that this Dylan guy’s a class-A psychopath.”

“But you think she was hallucinating everything else?” Marty asks.

“Possibly, yes.”

“Fifteen years I’ve been in AA, I’ve seen folks detox from all kinds of shit. Guys so nuts they’ll meet you for lunch and apologize for the warlock who followed them into the restaurant. None of those folks had it as together as she does right now.”

“Charley,” Kayla says, “we’ve got a more pressing issue to discuss.”

“What in Christ’s name could that be?” Marty asks.

“Your car, Charley. The SUV you were driving when the bikers ran you off the road. If it’s close to this crime scene, then—”

“Maybe he got rid of it,” Charlotte answers.

“How?”

“I don’t know. He blew up their damn storehouse. Maybe he threw my car on the pile. I don’t even know who this guy really is, much less what he’s capable of.”

“You really think this guy was just carrying around the kind of explosives that could trigger a blast like that?”

“Or he used whatever he found on-site. Maybe he found something with all those weapons that he used as an explosive.”

“You think he has that kind of training?” Marty asks.

“He said he was going to take care of eight bikers. Take care of them. On his own. And he said it like it was nothing. And it looks like he did.”

“And the Briffel kid?” Marty asks, a catch in his voice.

They fall silent. She wonders if, like her, they’re both imagining Jason dying of thirst on the floor of her kitchen.

“There’s no way,” Charlotte says.

“No way what?” Kayla asks.

“There’s no way Dylan did that to those bikers and just left Jason there.”

“Maybe he threw Jason on the pile along with your car,” Marty offers.

“That’s a big maybe,” Kayla whispers.